Six reasons why government is not more innovative

Why isn’t the Government generally more agile? Why isn’t innovation part of everything government does? Denning’s answer to these questions are: "Simple. The constraints on talented people who work in government agencies are enormous." Denning lists six reasons why government is not more innovative.

1. Public sector agencies often have no clear mission

When an agency tries to satisfy everyone, it usually ends up satisfying no one.

2. Politics often intervenes

Legislators, intent on exercising control, constrain the agency from innovating in healthy directions.

3. Agencies’ core competence: survival

In a political war zone, it is not surprising that agencies develop a core competence in survival.

4. The public sector is afflicted by management fads

5. Top managers don’t stay for long

The political heads of agencies are often political appointees who don’t stay for long. They are sometimes dismissive of previous activities of the agency and want to launch something “new” that they can call their own. They are often gone before much can happen. In this world, it is often safer for middle managers to wait for instructions and do what they are told, rather than stick their necks out for something that might become entangled in a political dogfight.

6. Staff are often demoralized

Living in a political war zone can be dispiriting, even for people at high levels.

Almost all of the reasons that government is not more innovative or that talented employees cannot make creative things happen, stem from politics. At the local level, I believe that a professional county or city manager can make a difference on all six of the above items. A professional manager that is evaluated every year has a vested interest in establishing a clear mission. A trained professional manager that does not have to campaign to win an election and who has the authority to hire and fire department heads will select people based on qualifications and not on politics. Overall, a municipality that is managed by a professional manager, usually has less of a political environment.

If you are interested in local government that is more innovative and where talented people can make a difference with their skills then encourage the adoption of a professional manager form of government. In my home town of Buffalo, NY (the third poorest city in the nation), machine politics has created a government where politics, patronage, and campaign cash drive government decisions more than new ideas. The only hope I see for turning things around is professional management, otherwise the six obstacles identified above will not change.

Tags

3 Comments

7. Politicians think they're god's gift to mankind and any "innovation" they think up will always work and if it fails, it's because the bureaucracy's fault for not trying hard enough. And any attempt to change (that means, improve) their cunning plan is sabotage and must be punished.

I tend to agree with Shawn,it's political. Government has their own agenda and could care less about efficiency, they just want more government and more control. Consider the NSA's new Spy Center their building in Utah, can you imagine how much time and money will be spent decrypting a single document? Think of the billions in taxpayer money spent on protecting the US homeland so far,and yet they have yet to even prove the threat exists,let alone arrest a single terrorist...It's insane !

Vote up!

0

Vote down!

0

The definition of reinvent is:

to replace with an entirely new version, to make over completely, to recast something familiar or old into a different form.

In my opinion we need to reinvent government, business and ourselves. Today's world is about constant change driven by the power of new ideas.

As an attorney for the past 17 years I have worked in government at the county, city, authority and school district level in the Buffalo, NY area. I have seen first hand the

Main menu

The opinions expressed on this website are those of each author, not of the author's employer or of Red Hat.

Opensource.com aspires to publish all content under a Creative Commons license but may not be able to do so in all cases. You are responsible for ensuring that you have the necessary permission to reuse any work on this site. Red Hat and the Shadowman logo are trademarks of Red Hat, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries.